The SAIS Observer is a newspaper written, edited and produced by the students of The Johns Hopkins University Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). Founded in 2002, it is the official student newspaper of the global SAIS community.

NANJING, China — On Oct. 24, Chris Tan, a Nanjing University professor of humanities, came to the Hopkins-Nanjing Center (HNC) to present students with a novel lecture titled “Gaymi” on the flourishing friendships between straight women and gay men in the city of Jinan, in China’s Shandong province. After earning a master’s degree from Yale University in 2002, Professor Tan received his Ph.D. at the University of Illinois-Champaign in 2011. Among his research interests are gender roles, sex and collective identity within homosexual communities in Singapore, mainland China and Taiwan.

The word “Gaymi,” referring to homosexual men who form close friendships with straight women, is a portmanteau of “gay” and the Chinese word guimi or “(female) best friend.” Employing the concept of “emergent masculinity” as his theoretical foundation, Tan carried out extensive research in Jinan on the country’s Gaymi culture. Tan’s research focused on women involved in these friendships rather than the Gaymis themselves. The true question of his research was this: Why is there a group identity among Chinese women that desire to be close friends with gay males?

In Tan’s opinion, the women of the one-child policy generation have greater self-confidence than earlier generations of Chinese women and thus prefer to discuss fashion, love and sex with gay men. In addition to this generational difference, these women are partially influenced by the growing popularity of Japanese BL (Boy’s Love) cultural products, as well as Korean KKonminam cultural products, both of which are increasingly found in China. Moreover, as Professor Tan points out, the concept of Gaymi as it exists today is something that finds its origins in the desires of urban Chinese women; it is not a concept with which gay men tend to identify, nor is it representative of gay men in China, who are still among society’s most marginalized groups.

After the lecture, HNC students and faculty asked whether or not the concept of Gaymis will raise public awareness and acceptance of LGBT identities. Furthermore, a professor asked whether or not straight women and the “revolutionary women” of Chinese history will be considered in a similar light. One classmate stated that the existence of sexual minorities in China cannot be overlooked and that this unique lecture immediately deepened her understanding of sexual identity in China.